Talk:How To Say Goodbye And Mean It: Part 2

Lunarians and the Last Look

Minimus says that 500,000,000 new sparks have come to term and also that 500 Lunarians have been integrated into society. The fact that he lists them as separate categories suggests to me that there are mostly "normal" TFs being born, and also a small number of Rung-ites who have never been seen before and got the new name. Also: I thought the whole point of the last few panels was that it was ambiguous. The LL is flying near a yellow sun - as when earlier that issue it was near one when Magnus said "okay, it's actually time to go home." Rodimus setting a course for peril and adventure was like when Capt. Kirk would say "Second Star to the right and straight on til morning" - no one actually put that into the nav computer, it was a sweet joke and they'd cruise around before going home. I thought the whole point of the sequence was that we DON'T know if it worked and never will. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:58, 7 November 2018 (EST)

I observed the first point and forgot to include it in the article; I actually read it as being an error, and that it was meant to say "500 million Lunarians," a restatement of the previous fact by Minimus in different words, rather than referring to two separate things.

But on the other point, no, you've just misread that. That's showing us the other side of the coin. The ship was supposed to jump back to Cybertron, which "our" crew did; the last pages are the duplicates who instead materialized at some unknown point somewhere off the map. - Chris McFeely (talk) 10:09, 7 November 2018 (EST)

I'm gonna hop into this lil' debate - I think the tone of Roberts' letter at the end makes it pretty clear that this other crew DOES pull it off, and WILL be having adventures, and that the universe without a Lost Light that they've jumped into is like, ours, man. Wow. Heavy. -hx (talk) 12:23, 7 November 2018 (EST)

Yeah, it's not showing us a "what if." I feel it's pretty unambiguously showing us the Duplicate Lost Light that was actually successfully created. --ItsWalky (talk) 13:44, 7 November 2018 (EST)

The fact that it's explicitly noted the navigation computer is going "404 location not found" pretty much makes it utterly clear, even if everything else does't. - TBR (talk) 17:33, 7 November 2018 (EST)

Also, like, on another topic, I didn't get the feeling that ALL the Lunarians were Rung-ish, just the one who took the helmet off. But maybe I'm missing a clue, I dunno. --ItsWalky (talk) 13:44, 7 November 2018 (EST)

The one who takes his helmet off is separate from the guy flying Rodimus. Escargon (talk) 13:50, 7 November 2018 (EST)

Yeah, there's at least two Rung-alikes, so it's pretty heavily implied, at least, that Lunarians are "Children of Primus". Which makes you wonder what would have happened if it really had been Rodimus who had reignited the hotspot... - TBR (talk) 17:33, 7 November 2018 (EST)

Oh god no, imagine so many Rodimusses... Rodimii? among the real Rodimus. It will either result in him being proud because "everything has to be in the shape of my face", or he will end up in a depression because there are so many of him, which by extension makes him less noticeable. Shockblaster's Hideout (talk) 04:17, 8 November 2018 (EST)

Also, Ambus's comment that the Lunarians are blending in so well that he wishes they'd stand out more implies they share Rung's forgettability. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 05:23, 1 February 2019 (EST)

Warren time travel

The idea that Rodimus's team went forward in time in the Warren is a great fix to the time disparity between Lost Light and rest of IDW, but it has a snag of its own. The Scavangers DIDN'T use a time-bendy method to get to Mederi, and it really doesn't feel like they were stuck in that cell for years when Nautica found them. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like years have past since the defeat of the Functionists and Prowl's visit. - Zandergb (talk) 18:37, 7 November 2018 (EST)

That's not a problem for the Scavengers, though, because they're not the ones claiming only a month has passed. They can have gone through their "Revolution" story, spent a few more years travelling, then go through the events of #14-15. - Chris McFeely (talk) 18:48, 7 November 2018 (EST)

Both the Scavangers and Rodimus's team departed for Mederi around the same time. LL #12 had Getaway use Warren to get to "Cyberutopia" and the Scavengers use Agonizer's portal to get to Troja Major. #13 had Rodimus's tracking of Getaway fail, presumably because of Getaway's Warren journey. #14-15 has Nickel trying to call Deathsaurus after being blown into the portal, and then the Scavengers being teleported to Mederi relatively soon after. #16 tells us that Rodimus's team used the Warren right after the events of #13. So both #13/#16's flashback and #14-15 happen right after #12, which brings us back to either the Warren providng a time skip and the Scavengers being trapped for years, or both groups arriving around the same time and there being a (regular) time skip between #24 and the earliest bits of #25. Zandergb (talk) 14:44, 8 November 2018 (EST)

You're presuming the Scavengers stuff in #12 occurs concurrently, in the same time period, as the other stuff. Presume it doesn't, and this ceases to be a problem! - Chris McFeely (talk) 16:22, 8 November 2018 (EST)

But it does, the battle the Scavangers stumble upon is the same one that Getaway refuses to respond to in #11. Zandergb (talk) 09:59, 9 November 2018 (EST)

I'm half-kidding in all of this because it's obviously all a balls-up, but to play the game a bit, since we know that the Lost Light makes multiple trips through the Warren, we can't conclusively conclude that it's the Warren transit from #12 that takes them to Cyberutopia that is the one Rodimus loses track of them after. We could, for instance, presume that's simply an unseen Warren jump that moves the Lost Light from the "present" into the "future" in which they are location when they later turn down the distress call from Frayus.- Chris McFeely (talk) 11:07, 9 November 2018 (EST)

https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1062091397271089152 welp. Zandergb (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2018 (EST)

Nautica's "omission"

Last few edits got me thinking on this. I always took Swerve lamenting a regrettable omission from Nautica's book as her not mentioning Skids (cuz, y'know, she doesn't really care that much about him anymore and Swerve obviously does.) But clearly this is up to interpretation as those edits demonstrate. Does anyone have a more definite answer on what Swerve is referring to? Nu-Priest (talk) 09:58, 9 September 2023 (EDT)

I think the fact it specifies "at the end" heavily suggests that it's about the quantum jump, but I suppose if there's confusion it might be worth laying out the possibilities on the page. --Riptide (talk) 13:16, 9 September 2023 (EDT)

Time to Ratchet’s funeral

Did the issue ever indicate a specific duration (or even a rough approximation) between the quantum jump and Ratchet’s funeral? Another page (can’t remember which) states “centuries”, but this seems long to me, particularly if we consider the homing of the Lunarians (I know 500 m is a lot, but surely it wouldn’t take centuries). Other pages, including the timeline page, just say “many years later”. Doc Chloroplast (talk) 12:57, 9 March 2026 (EDT)

I looked through and noted all the chronological references. The very first timeframe it gives, when skipping from the funeral back to when Rodimus proposes the lap of honor to Prowl, is simply "much earlier". Swerve comments that it's been "years" since he last saw Ratchet, and Minimus Ambus that it's been "years" since he even looked at Terms of Peace. Minimus Ambus also tells Nautica that it's been a month since they passed the halfway mark for the Bronze Harvest (500 million sparks down, another 500 million to go). Brainstorm says Whirl has served 84 sentences across different prisons, though no details about how long those sentences were. Towards the end Drift also remarks that it's been "years" since the quantum jump, but just like Swerve and Minimus's usage of the word it's entirely non-specific about how many. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 06:05, 10 March 2026 (EDT)